


Destination

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Adventure, Bicycles, Hitchhiking, Light Angst, M/M, Road Trips, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 10:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19766611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: Sometimes, it's actually about the journey.





	Destination

Jaemin had no idea what state he was in. 

Well… his mental state he was relatively confident about. The geographical state of his location was where he got tripped up. He had stopped keeping track around North Carolina somewhere. All he knew was that he had gotten all the way to a beach and it was way too warm out to be December.

He had been travelling for nearly three damn weeks now and he could feel it in his muscles. In his brain. In his hunger. In the weight he’d lost. He could see it in the facial hair growing in. In his roots showing through his brightly-dyed hair. He could see it in the weird, stripy tan he’d gotten from long days out on the road. 

But hot damn. He was _really_ out here! He had actually gotten here.

Jaemin took a long moment to just stare out at the waves crashing against the shore and at the seagulls circling overhead. He didn’t think he’d make it to his destination. He had spent nearly every day wondering if something would happen that would keep him from moving forward, to make him want to turn around, but… here he was. He’d started his little pilgrimage on a whim way back in mid-November, northern Maine soil over a thousand miles behind him. It was a crazy idea but he’d done it just to do it. He simply packed up his shit one day and _left_. 

Jaemin had only taken the bare essentials. Anything he could fit in his old high school backpack. Which meant he hadn’t packed much.

His ID. A huge water bottle with his high school’s tiger mascot emblazoned on it. Two toothbrushes. Toothpaste. A stick of deodorant. Emergency toilet paper. An old-school manual can opener. A copy of _The Goldfinch_ stolen from the school library. Nearly $5,000 in wadded-up bills and restaurant gift cards. Two switchblades, just in case. A flashlight. A pack of batteries. A wool blanket to keep away the cold and a lighter to start a fire when the blanket wasn’t enough. Anything else he needed, he bought. Anything he _wanted_ , he stole. Simple as that.

Sit him down for an interview and ask bluntly and Jaemin couldn’t tell you why he had gone through with such craziness. 

He just felt the need to hop on his bike and Go Somewhere. When he began, he thought ‘somewhere’ was just the opposite end of the street. Now he was on the opposite end of the country.

It was both easier and tougher than he imagined. In the mornings, he’d find a convenience store and stock up on water, canned soup. A bag of peanut M&Ms if he wanted to splurge. Sometimes, he found a 24/7 diner and ate his fill of pancakes, bacon and sunny side up eggs. If he needed to buy other stuff (nail clippers, band-aids, antacids, scissors, gloves, pain relievers. Soap! Fucking _bug spray_!), he always bought enough to get him through the day. Never enough to weigh him down. When traveling, he slept not too long after the sun went down and then he’d wake up early and rack up the miles during the short, winter daylight hours, either on his bike or in the passenger seat of some gracious soul’s car.

Hitchhiking had been terrifying at first, standing on the side of the road hoping and praying yet still thinking _not you not you not you_ , but then he stopped caring. Only the way forward mattered. How he got there was just secondary. He’d ridden in an eighteen wheeler with a tobacco-chewing old man missing half his teeth. He’d ridden in a luxury sedan with a wannabe youth pastor spouting Bible verses non-stop. He’d ridden in a pretty girl’s convertible who kept trying to make conversation with him in I-watch-anime-a-lot Japanese. He’d ridden in some creepy old lady’s ancient hatchback with Gregorian chants thundering from the speakers. He’d ridden in a redneck’s pick-up truck with the flatbed full of grizzly-looking hunting dogs. One time, he’d hopped a ride on a hearse. As long as they had somewhere for him to chuck his bike, he really didn’t mind.

Whenever the curious drivers asked him where he was headed, “just go south” was always his reply. Regardless of who was at the wheel, he was grateful for the heat pumping out of the air vents and he’d watch the miles whizz by the windshield, thankful that he could stop pedaling at least for the moment. Sometimes the driver drove him a mile or so before pulling to the side of the road, reconsidering. One time, he’d gotten across a state line.

Jaemin had found out that not having a destination didn’t sit right with a lot of people.

They wanted state names. City names. He just wanted “south.”

Sometimes they asked him why he needed to go so far. “To find myself,” he would always say. Whenever they wondered if he was a runaway with concerned parents who missed him, “I’m twenty the fuck years old” was all he’d say.

Besides, no one was staying up late waiting for him.

At the start of his journey, up in Maine, in New Hampshire, even into Massachusetts a little, he’d drop a couple hundred on a hotel room without putting much thought to it. When he realized how fast he was burning through his cash, he found alternatives. He slept under highway bridges. In the corner booth seat of a Waffle House. Beneath a bench in a poorly-lit city park. When the weather turned, he took to riskier options, finding an unlocked car in a shopping center parking lot or sneaking onto some stranger’s front porch. Anything to keep the rain, sleet, and snow off of his head.

It got old fast. His body was always stiff in the mornings and, if he was unlucky, he got the cops called on him, but camping equipment was expensive and was too large for his backpack besides. Food and water was more important. Finding a coin laundromat to wash his clothes was more important. Giving himself an impromptu shower in the sink of a restaurant bathroom was more important.

But all of that was behind him now. The journey was over. He had arrived at his destination.

Jaemin dumped his bike down on its side and sank down in the sand, dulling pink hair whipping around his head in the wild coastal breeze.

It was late afternoon, the sun was dipping below the horizon behind him and turning the sky above the ocean a soft violet.

Then it clicked.

“There’s not a soul out here. No one in the world.” He looked up and down the strip of sand but, as far as he could tell, he was the only person out here. Then again, it was the middle of winter. And unlike L.A. on the other side of the continent, east coast beaches were _cold_. To remind him of that fact, the wind picked up, biting through his sweatshirt straight to his skin. “Damn, that’s cold,” he hissed, turning his face away from the wind and rubbing at his sore thighs.

Now that he’d come all the way here, now that he’d actually reached that ‘somewhere’ he’d set off to find three weeks ago, he had no idea what to do with himself now. He couldn’t turn back, though. He refused to go back home. At least for now.

“If only I could keep going,” Jaemin sighed, biting his bottom lip as he stared at the hazy line where the gray-blue ocean turned frothy and white as the waves hit the shore. He raised a hand and pointed over the water. “If only I could pedal across and see… damn… what the fuck is over there? Europe?” He laughed at himself only for the nipply wind to bite at him again, humbling him into a curled-up silence. “Where _am_ I?” Street signs didn’t mean too much when nothing around him was familiar and his phone was 1,400 miles away, sitting on the dining table where he’d accidentally left it.

Jaemin pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and pulled the drawstrings tight to block out the chill.

He did not feel like sleeping outside. How much cash did he have left? He’d book a damn presidential suite tonight!

Jaemin stood up and rescued his bike from the sand. His body was still acclimated to his strange sleep schedule. It couldn’t have been but five or six in the evening but he was ready to knock out and sleep for a day. Too tired and sore to pedal, he pushed his bike over the dunes and back towards the road. A bug flitted into his face, almost into his mouth, and he raised a sleeve to bat it away. Good lord, he needed to do his laundry. Shit. He could also use a shower. He hadn’t properly bathed since… What was today? Sunday? He hadn’t bathed since Wednesday, chucking off his clothes and dunking himself in a river. Jaemin pulled back the neck of his sweatshirt and gave his armpit a sniff. He immediately recoiled, his face scrunched up in disgust.

Yeah, he was definitely paying for a room tonight.

With nothing but smooth asphalt beneath his wheels now, Jaemin stood up on wobbly legs, swung a leg over his bike and got moving again.

With every pump of the pedals, his brain fired the same question at him: “What are you doing out here? What are you _doing_ out here?” 

Unlike all of the times he’d snapped at a curious stranger, this time, he didn’t have a smart ass answer.

He had just been a boy heading south, but now that he was finally south, what else was left for him?

West, maybe.

Jaemin was working his way down the side of some country highway when there was a clunking sound from beneath him. His whole bike vibrated. Thinking he’d hit a rock or something, he pushed on. It was risky being out here at night, he thought. At least without lights on his bike. Then there was a violent jolt through the entire bike, like he’d been hit or something, and then the pedals legitimately _dropped off of his bike!_

“Fuck,” he grunted as the whole thing threatened to dump him out onto the grass at the shoulder of the road. He used his feet to drag the bike to a halt and then jumped off. He only had to look at the thing for a split-second to realize that the entire crank arm had come loose. “Talk about riding until the wheels fall off!”

He was up the creek without a paddle. He had no repair tools. Even if he did, he wouldn’t know what to fucking do with them. He didn’t even have a phone to do a hasty Google search! For the first time since his journey started, he felt genuine panic. Above him, the sun was setting completely, giving him barely enough light to even see the hand in front of his face. What was he going to do? There wasn’t a single speck of light in either direction. No houses. Not even a car!

“Of all the times to have an issue,” he growled at his bike. “You wait until right at the end to shit out on me.”

Jaemin dropped to his knees in the dirt. Holding up his bike with one hand and collecting the bits and pieces of the crank arm with the other, he fruitlessly tried to stick things back together in hopes that they’d miraculously attach. Of course they wouldn’t. Of course!

He’d only been at it a good five minutes when he gave up. He hissed in frustration, his right hand almost completely covered in bright red rust. At this rate, he’d be better off hurling the busted thing into the woods and going the last little way on foot. Maybe he’d buy a train ticket instead of a hotel room tonight.

As if on cue, a Jeep Wrangler pulled up to the side of the road beside him. The driver rolled down his window and shouted over the distance, “You hurt?”

Jaemin looked up and narrowed his eyes but the dude was but a silhouette on the other side of the door. “I’m fi--” He started, but the lie fell apart on his tongue. “No,” he properly answered. “My bike fell apart.”

The Wrangler’s motor revved and then inched backwards in reverse. Jaemin’s heart fell out of his stomach. He was either about to get run over or left here in the damn dust, one.

Then the Wrangler swiveled a bit, putting Jaemin more directly in the headlights.

The door swung open and the driver hopped out and stepped forward into the high beams.

At last, Jaemin could see the guy’s face. Short black hair, jagged around the ears like he’d gone at it himself with a pair of scissors. A small, straight nose. Narrow lips pulled back to show a row of tiny, white teeth in an overly-familiar grin.

Still, Jaemin was on edge. He had apparently just run out of the bravery, maybe even the _carelessness_ that had propelled him this far over the past few weeks.

The young man stopped a foot or two short of him. He walked left one step. Two steps. Then he turned and walked right one step. Two steps. He was standing in front of Jaemin again. “Doesn’t look too bad. I can help,” he explained himself, pointing in the general direction of the pile of metal parts in the gravel. “I mess with bikes all of the time.”

“Stealing them,” Jaemin spat out, not to be mean but just to throw the dude for a loop. 

“Fixing them,” the guy said back, so casually that it was as if he’d expected Jaemin to say such a thing. “I work at a bike shop.”

“Have at it.” Jaemin waved a hand. He didn’t have much of a choice.

The stranger came closer, the new angle of the headlights bringing more of his features into focus. He wasn’t particularly handsome, at least not right off the bat. His ears seemed a bit small for his head and his eyes were oddly spaced, but his smile made him pleasant-looking, even with his truly-fucked haircut. The piercing in his left eyebrow didn’t quite go with his preppy plaid button-down shirt, khaki pants and Sperrys.

Jaemin honestly didn’t know what to think of him.

The stranger squatted down, picking up and examining the broken parts and pieces. 

“Think you can save it,” Jaemin asked hopefully.

“First of all,” the stranger snorted, “it’s dark as hell out here. Second, I don’t have any of my tools on me or any of the parts I need.” Jaemin saw the exact moment the light clicked on in the guy’s head. “We can swing by the shop right now. Should be open until eight.”

“Sounds like you can fix her up really quickly.” Jaemin had only a rough estimate of what time it was.

“No time flat,” the guy assured him. “Three hours tops.” 

Relief swept over Jaemin. He had assumed the repairs would take days. He didn’t have the cash to stay in a hotel room like that. Hell, buying a new bike would probably be cheaper. “How much do I owe you?”

“Dude,” the guy raised a hand to his chest in true offense. “I’m positive we’ve got the parts just stashed in the back collecting dust somewhere.”

“Dude,” Jaemin parroted, but now a smile was creeping across his own face. His earlier nervousness left his bones. “Thanks a lot. I mean it. This bike means the world to me.”

“As it should.” The stranger made a grab for the bike but his hands stopped in mid-air. “May I?”

_That southern politeness_ , Jaemin thought and then rolled his eyes.

The guy took that as a yes and gripped the bike with both hands. He stepped back, grunted once and then lifted the blue and yellow bike right out of Jaemin’s grip. “We can hook it on the back,” he announced.

Jaemin shifted the weight of the backpack on his shoulders and then followed the guy around to the tail end of the Wrangler. A bike rack had been bolted to the back over the spare tire and the two of them fell into a mildly awkward silence as the stranger hooked things up. As subtle as he could manage, he glanced at the license plate. Florida? When he’d stopped keeping track he must have _stopped keeping track_.

The guy was just about finished mounting the bike when he blurted out, “Where are you from, anyway?”

“Maine,” Jaemin mumbled before he had even realized. When asked by strangers, he usually just said “north” as if anything more specific than that could get him killed. Defensively, he stood up a little straighter, fearing that he’d bring his old self back by talking about where he was from. Did he have an old self to run from if he didn’t have a new self to be? “Why’d you ask?”

“A lucky guess.” The stranger grinned, looking up from his work on the bike rack to shoot Jaemin a toothy grin. “I can hear it in your voice. No drawl. You ain’t from around here.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes again. Good naturedly this time. He probably _looked_ like he wasn’t from these parts in his sweaty and dirty clothes, tangled up hair and bulging backpack. The wind picked up again, reminding him of the chilly night descending on them. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Know any decent places to stay around here?”

The stranger, who had finished with the bike, wiped off his hands and raised a pierced eyebrow at him. “We’re still on the outskirts of town,” he said. “You won’t find a hotel for another couple of miles.”

“Damn,” Jaemin grunted. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Mind taking me?”

“Take you to where? A hotel?” The stranger looked rather scandalized, like he’d never heard such a suggestion in his life.

Jaemin nodded, widening his eyes in a way that said ‘ _yeah, where the fuck else?_ ’ “I know it’s late but maybe somebody’s got a vacancy. I can check in, get cleaned up and eat something while you fix my bike.” Jaemin turned his gaze towards the sky. “Or keep it for yourself. Nothing’s stopping you from taking it.”

“I suppose I could.” Then the guy gasped. “Take you to a hotel, I mean. Not steal your bike. There’s a cheap place not too far from the bike shop. Ocean view and everything.” His smile returned, confident and bright and eye-catching. “I can swing the bike by when I’m through. Sound good?”

“More than good.”

“Let’s get you into town. Hop in.”

Jaemin didn’t need to be told twice. He stepped around the vehicle, swung open the door and made himself at home in the passenger seat. The inside of someone’s car was like a diary, showing people at their most vulnerable. Jaemin had ridden in cars that stank of cigarette ash with dirt and mud tracked all over the carpet. He had ridden in cars with seats piled high with textbooks and crumpled papers and forgotten French fries and obviously used condoms. Jaemin had ridden in cars with rock band stickers plastered to the dashboard and cracked CD cases crammed into the glove box. This stranger’s car, though, was _pristine_. Not even a stray McDonald’s burger wrapper wedged between the seats. It was as if he was afraid of leaving a mark. The little tree dangling from the rearview mirror gave off a faint Hawaiian scent. 

The stranger got into the car, shut his door and was halfway through putting on his seatbelt before he gasped and looked up. “I’m Mark,” he introduced himself. “I probably should have said that before I offered a ride.”

“I’m Jaemin,” he said back, oddly flustered. “I probably should have said that before I asked for a ride.”

Mark put the Wrangler in drive and steered them back onto the winding road. 

There wasn’t any sign of a moon in the sky and Jaemin had only counted a handful of stars between the clouds by the time they came up to their first stoplight. 

“What brings you out here?” Mark asked, turning up the radio by a smidgen before flipping through the stations.

Jaemin’s ready-made answer was still on the tip of his tongue, _to find myself_ or some other responsibility-dodging bullshit. Instead, he more honestly answered, “I got sick of being alone.”

“Isn’t the open road lonely?”

Jaemin gritted his teeth but reminded himself that Mark was just making polite, benign conversation. There weren’t too many other ways to pass the time as the Wrangler sat at the red light. “You know what,” Jaemin realized, three weeks too late, “it really is.” He’d gone _weeks_ without a proper conversation. Purposefully, of course. Talking held him up, slowed him down, kept him from getting to his destination. Talking gave him time to ponder the merits of _turning around_. “People look at you like you’re a psychopath when you ask for a ride.”

The light changed. Mark accelerated down the road.

Jaemin thought he saw stars out the front windshield only to make the connection that they were the warm, orange lights of a town on the horizon.

“I didn’t think you were a psychopath.” Mark had waited so long to say it that Jaemin had forgotten what he’d said to warrant such a response.

“Thanks,” he replied. “I guess.”

“What had you feeling lonely?” Mark prompted. “Back up in Maine?”

It was the same conversation he’d sat through while sitting in other people’s cars. Everyone only wanted to ask about where he came from. No one wanted to ask about where he was going. Still, Jaemin found himself too tired and too grateful to be irritated. “School.” He stuck his right thumbnail between his teeth and bit it until he could feel it tear. “Work. Home. Everything.”

“School…” Mark repeated. Cautiously, he asked, “High school?”

“College,” corrected Jaemin. He pointed at himself. “Started early. Finished early.”

Mark whistled, impressed. Then he reached forward and changed the radio station again. Orchestral music tumbled out of the speakers. He rapidly tapped the seek button until he found an upbeat pop song.

He hadn’t asked another question, but Jaemin felt compelled to keep speaking. “Called a genius by all of my teachers and can still only land a job in retail.” He laughed humorlessly. “At least I used to have a job in retail. I can only assume I’m no longer employed there.” Leaving as abruptly as he had. His work schedule be damned. 

Outside, they drove on, the headlights bringing scrub brush and trees into view for a brief moment before whirling everything back into darkness. They had been on the road for about fifteen minutes already but Jaemin knew it would have taken him ages, eons, to get this far on foot.

They came up on another red light. Mark stopped and waited and waited and waited even though there wasn’t a pair of headlights coming in any other direction. Jaemin turned to look at Mark. “Are you still in school?”

“If I could make up my mind, I’d have graduated by now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The ghastly red light from outside let Jaemin see Mark frown and furrow his pierced brow. He said, “It means the school won’t let me change my major again. They sent an official letter and everything.”

“What’s your major now?”

“Does it matter? It’s just community college.”

“Dude, community college is great. It’ll save you a shit ton of money.”

“Not when it takes you four-going-on-five years to get an Associate’s because you can’t stick with a major longer than a year.”

There was quiet again, stilted and strange. The pop music on the radio wasn’t even loud enough to fill the silence. Not even the roar of the engine as Mark took off on the green light filled the quiet.

At least they were in the town proper now, passing houses and churches and old restaurants and bars. There was enough light out that Jaemin saw it all reflected in the rippling waves of the ocean. All of this time and he hadn’t even realized they were still driving beside it.

Jaemin kept his gaze out the passenger window, staring at the waves. “Well, what do you want to do, Mark?” The guy’s name felt strange behind his teeth. It was the first time he’d said it since he’d found out what it was.

“I don’t know, Jaemin,” Mark said back, in the same clipped tone. Under any other circumstances, Jaemin would have thought the guy was mocking him. 

“My family moved to the States when I was eight or nine,” Jaemin said. Again, he was answering questions he hadn’t been asked. Talking just came so _easy_ . “They thought I’d be _better challenged_ here.”

Mark snorted back a laugh that would have sounded pompous coming from anyone else. He steered them onto a side road but didn’t speak, giving Jaemin time to finish.

“They were right, I guess,” continued Jaemin. “Except all of my challenges weren’t academic.” The bright lights of a gas station they passed temporarily blinded him and he blinked his eyes shut until the red splotches against his eyelids dissolved. “I got called all sorts of names. Mainly James. Definitely got called that a lot. James isn’t even my English name. Want to know what it is? It’s--”

“Shit!” Mark cursed, throwing the Wrangler in park.

“What?” Jaemin sat up, alarmed. He glanced out the front windshield as if expecting to see something in the road, obstructing their path. Instead, he discovered that they’d pulled into a long driveway next to an old brick house.

Mark slapped both hands over his face. “I accidentally drove you to my house instead of the shop! Force of habit.” 

“It’s okay,” Jaemin told him. He had also gotten so swept up in the conversation that he’d stopped being vigilant about his surroundings.

Mark felt terrible. “I got so caught up. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry!”

“It’s okay,” Jaemin repeated. He relaxed back onto his seat and took a moment to look out at the house. It was quaint and charming, which was codeword for cramped and looking a good kick away from collapsing in on itself. 

Mark seemed to regain his composure. He let out one last groan and then dragged his hands down his face towards his chin. “Stay cool, Mark,” he told himself. Then, in a louder voice, “Damn, I have to circle back and get on the highway to get us to the shop.” Then, even louder as realization hit. “What am I talking about? I probably have the parts I need out back in the shed.” At long last, he dropped his hands from his face into his lap and twisted towards Jaemin as if suddenly remembering he was in the car. “Oh… wait. I still have to take you to the hotel!”

Jaemin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can just stay here while you fix it, right?”

Mark gasped. “Dude, it’s kinda right down the road. I can just--”

“But we’re here already. The faster I get my bike fixed, the better.”

Reluctantly, Mark raised a hand to the key in the ignition and shut off the car.

Jaemin went on, “I could use a hot meal, a shower and a nap. Oh and laundry. Laundry, too. I can pay you.” He knew he still had a couple hundred bucks shoved deep into the pockets of his backpack somewhere. “The nap’s the most important thing. I’m usually long asleep by now.”

“I don’t want to take your money,” Mark said. Then he hastily amended, “I mean, I was the one who drove us here by accident.”

Jaemin screwed his eyes shut. The day’s long journey was catching up to him and this was the first time he’d sat in a _seat_ since… Tuesday? “You’ll be done in a few hours, right?” He blinked open his eyes. Tiny little pinpricks of light waltzed through his vision and made it seem as if Mark had tiny stars in his hair. “If I can just get cleaned up, I’ll leave as soon as you’re done. I promise.” Without even waiting, he unbuckled himself, flung open the passenger door and got out.

Mark stared after him dumbstruck, then got out of the car himself to rescue the bike from the rack. With the bike hoisted up over one shoulder, he clumsily followed Jaemin up the rickety front steps towards the door. Mark started to fumble around in the pockets of his slacks, probably for his keys, when the front door swung open in front of them.

A short, pudgy, middle-aged woman answered the door. She was on her phone, chatting and laughing away with someone in Korean, but she stepped back to allow Mark to teeter inside and carefully sit Jaemin’s busted bike against the wall next to three expensive-looking bicycles. Their pedals intact.

The woman Jaemin assumed was Mark’s mother gave Jaemin the briefest of once-overs before motioning him indoors. Jaemin barely had both feet in the door before she was slamming the front door shut. Without even a glance over her shoulder, she stepped away, slipping around the corner towards what appeared to be the living room, laughing all the while.

Now that Mark had actual light, he was giving Jaemin’s bike a closer examination, humming to himself like a doctor examining a pathology report.

“Umm…” Jaemin said with a shy grin, feeling odd standing in the foyer. “When are you going to start working on it?” He was just a passerby. The sooner he was _moving_ the better.

Mark stood up and ran a hand through his choppy hair. There was rust on his fingertips, Jaemin noticed. So thick and so dark that it nearly looked like blood. “I can take it to the shed after I show you the bathroom and--” He paused, turning his head and sniffing the air. “Smells like Mom had pizza delivered.”

“Pizza?” Jaemin repeated lamely. He felt silly getting so excited but after days of sitting on the side of the road eating cold soup, pizza sounded like a delicacy. Enough of one that he legitimately started salivating. If that wasn’t humiliating in and of itself, his stomach growled audibly, painfully reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything since that morning.

To his credit, Mark shrugged it off. “Come on. Let me get you situated.”

Mark slowly backed away from Jaemin’s bike as if he feared it would topple over if he stepped away, then he led Jaemin past the living room, past the archway to the kitchen. He stopped outside of a doorway, reached inside and turned on a light. 

Jaemin had never been so happy to see a bathroom!

It didn’t look freshly renovated or anything but even these accommodations looked luxurious after pissing in the woods all weekend.

“Wait here,” Mark told him. “I’ll go get you a bath towel and some soap and all of that.” 

Jaemin nodded at him and Mark spun on his heel and left.

Perhaps the prospect of getting clean triggered something in his head. Jaemin’s clothes--they had been so _comfortable_ five minutes ago--suddenly felt filthy and rough against his skin. He itched to be free of them. Jaemin untangled himself from his backpack and leaned it against the wall. Then he pulled his sweatshirt off over his head and chucked it onto the floor beneath the sink. It was covered in dirt and grime and was stiff from sweat. Blegh! Next, he yanked off his ratty, doodle-covered Converses and gave one of them a sniff just for the hell of it. There was immediate regret. “Shit!” He dry-heaved, just about choked, before lowering the shoe and flinging it into the corner with its partner. Goodness. He honestly couldn’t recall the last time he’d managed to do laundry! Like a snake shedding its old, dry skin, he peeled out of his musty shirt, wrestled his dirt-caked pants to the floor and had just snatched off his boxers and kicked them aside when Mark came back into the bathroom.

“The hot water knob’s a bit finicky. Let me show-- Oh!” Mark let out a strangled gasp of surprise at Jaemin’s nakedness before he promptly backed out of the bathroom and hid behind the door jamb.

Jaemin allowed himself to be embarrassed for about five seconds, his cheeks flushing pink beneath the dirt. “Sorry,” he admitted. “Got carried away.” He’d just wanted to get out of those dirty clothes. 

“I swear I didn’t see anything. Want me to leave everything at the door,” Mark suggested.

“Just hand it to me.” He stepped out into the hall, forcing Mark to discover how interesting the ceiling was. Jaemin said nothing. He just grabbed the box of soap, the towel and the washcloth out of Mark’s shaking hands. 

“Need anything else?”

Jaemin didn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of this before. “Shampoo?”

“Oh.” Mark moved to enter the bathroom again. “There’s a bottle on the edge of the tub. Just--” They bumped shoulders. Mark must have remembered Jaemin’s nakedness because he jolted away, running his hip into the corner of the sink. “Edge of the tub,” he repeated, fighting back a wince. “Just don’t use all of it. Please.”

Jaemin couldn’t help but laugh. More at himself than at Mark. Over the course of his trip, he’d gotten so used to stripping bare in Walgreens restrooms to hastily soak his clothes in hand soap and wring them out over the sink that he’d grown… _distant_ from any sense of shame. “Thanks,” he told Mark, allowing himself to smile.

“Anything else,” Mark asked, still playing the part of gracious host. At least he had lowered his gaze from the ceiling to look Jaemin in the eye.

“You’ve done enough already.”

“You sure? Need a toothbrush?”

“I’ve got one. Thanks.”

“Some dry, clean clothes. Bet you don’t have those.”

“You know… you’re right about that.”

“Good. You can wear some of my old stuff.” Something happened then. Jaemin nearly couldn’t place it. That look in Mark’s eyes... It was like being recognized. It was like being _seen_. Jaemin figured it out. Mark wasn’t looking at him with even a shred of pity in his gaze. He wasn’t looking at Jaemin like some charity case or a dirty, stray mutt off the street. He was looking at Jaemin like an old friend. He was looking at Jaemin like he was Jaemin.

And Jaemin hadn’t had that in a while.

Mark gasped. “Oh, the hot water knob!”

“I’ll figure it out,” Jaemin told him. Now he actually _did_ feel a little shame, standing in front of a near-stranger naked like this.

With a slow, understanding nod, Mark tottered out of the bathroom. “I’ll get to work on your bike, then. It’ll be good as new.”

“I appreciate it. Really. I do.”

Mark smiled and shut the door behind him.

As soon as Jaemin was alone, he sank to the floor. His knees had gotten weak with gratitude. All of this time, he had still been a little scared. A little cautious. He had seen the absolute worst in people over the last few weeks so to catch a glimpse of the best in someone almost felt foreign. Mark was _kind_ and, for once, Jaemin didn’t get the feeling that the guy had a twisted, depraved reasoning behind being nice.

Mark was right. The hot water knob was a bit finnicky. It felt loose. In fact, it came out of the wall in his hand when he first twisted it, but he managed to find just the right angle where he could turn it and actually get the water temperature to obey him.

The shower was long and sauna-hot. He was shit at keeping track of time these days but he was positive he spent an entire half hour just scrubbing at his skin or washing and detangling his hair. The drain at his feet made odd gurgling noises as dirt and strands of hair threatened to clog it. Jaemin didn’t think to get out until the water was so cold he couldn’t stand it, but even then he was reluctant to pull himself out from beneath the running water.

“How long has it been since I showered?” Truly, he didn’t really want to know the answer. He wasn’t even completely positive that it was Sunday like he thought! Sunday could have been days ago for all he knew.

He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. It almost hurt to towel himself off. He’d scrubbed his skin so hard scraping off the layers of dust and dirt that even the soft cotton towel lit fires across his nerve endings. He lifted the towel to his hair and started there instead. Water dripped from his lashes and nose and the tips of his fingers. After inhaling the peach scent of Mark’s shampoo for so long, Jaemin was viscerally aware of how awful his clothes smelled piled up in the corner. He wondered how Mark had put up with the ridiculous stench during the long drive without saying anything. During his travels, it probably would have been easier to just throw away his dirty clothes and buy new threads every couple of cities, but… Jaemin exhaled through his nose. Clothes were expensive. And took up a lot of space in his backpack. Especially pants. New clothes just weren’t necessary, which was why he kept piling filth onto the old clothes. 

Jaemin lowered the towel from his hair and then more patiently attempted to blot the wetness off of his reddened skin. His gaze wandered towards his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t quite look his best, with bluish circles under his eyes, with his dark roots showing through his pink-dyed hair, with a beard trying its absolute best to grow out of his chin. He knew he looked even worse all dirty at the side of the road. “But damn,” he commented, “look at me now.” Days and days and days of cycling had toned his shoulders and bulked up his calves. He’d played basketball in school so it wasn’t like he was a stranger to cardio, but he never would have gotten this kind of physique on the court. Borrowing a razor or using the hair clippers felt a bit too personal so he settled for spending a little more time than he usually did combing his hair to feel (and hopefully look) a bit more presentable.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and carefully opened the bathroom door.

As Mark had promised, clothes had been neatly folded next to the door. Jaemin grabbed them and stepped back into the bathroom to change. The socks were comfortable. Padded. Dry. When Jaemin wriggled his toes, his nails didn’t snag on a loose thread and he didn’t feel the airish draft of a hole in the material. Mark appeared so stuffy and preppy so Jaemin was pleasantly surprised by the obscure rock band t-shirt he unfolded and then slipped into. The sweatpants felt comfortably worn and used. The design sat more on the ass than the hip and Jaemin took notice of the fact that Mark’s old school mascot had also been a tiger. The clothes were a little snug on him, almost tighter than what he was comfortable with, but he didn’t have much room to complain.

Fully dressed and starving, he put his backpack over his shoulder, grabbed his dirty clothes and started down the hall in the direction of the kitchen. A television was on in some part of the house, loud enough for Jaemin to understand the news report even from this far away. He caught bits and pieces of the newscaster’s spiel: some famous around-the-world boat race was about to begin, a tropical storm was developing out towards the gulf and they would know by the weekend if it would swell into a hurricane, and a local gymnastics team had placed first in a national competition. 'By the weekend' was the phrase that stuck out most to Jaemin. That meant it wasn’t Sunday like he’d believed all day. It was more than likely Monday or Tuesday. He had definitely been out here doing this traveling thing longer than he thought.

More by accident than intention, Jaemin found the tiny door that opened to the stacked washer and dryer. He had already asked permission, technically. He also feared that carrying around his dirty clothes and stinking up the place would be the greater faux pas, given the situation, so he took a moment to look over the buttons and dials and then started a wash cycle. He put in more detergent than he knew he needed to and then dumped all of his clothes in. 

Jaemin retraced his steps to the kitchen, poking his head around the archway right as Mark sat down at the tiny kitchen table with a plate of pizza across from his mother.

Jaemin had nearly backed out into the hall, feeling like he’d intruded, when Mark glanced up and caught his eye.

“Mom, this is Jaemin; Jaemin, this is my mom.” Mark unnecessarily pointed at each of them in turn before shoving a slice of pizza in his mouth. He had put on a pair of thick, round glasses, Jaemin noticed. And his already short hair had been pulled away from his face in a short, stubby ponytail on top of his head. His cheeks were stained with streaks of grease and rust. Yet, still, Jaemin found himself _attracted_. For the first time in three long weeks. Maybe even longer than that with his awful way of keeping track. Jaemin realized he was staring and turned away, only to meet the gaze of Mark’s mother.

Free of her earlier cell phone conversation, she gave Jaemin an approving smile. 

There was a twinkle in her eyes. Just shiny enough that Jaemin swore the woman thought Mark had brought home a date. Fortunately, she hooked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the stack of pizza boxes on the counter. “Don’t be shy,” she said. Her voice was refreshing and smooth like sweetened tea with a lemon slice on the rim. “Mark’s brothers are out of town. There’s only the three of us tonight.”

“Don’t eat up all of the Supreme,” Mark warned with a mouth full of pepperoni pizza, “or I’ll pay for it with my life.”

Jaemin chuckled aloud. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in ages. He shoved his backpack against the wall then walked to the kitchen counter, plopping down two or three (or four or five) slices of cheesy and deliciously greasy pizza onto a plate. It didn’t even matter that the food was no longer piping hot. He already had a slice in his mouth when he sat down at the table. The table was so small that his knee brushed against Mark’s beneath the table. Maybe it was because Jaemin had spent the last little bit of his shower soaking in cold water but… Mark felt so soft and warm. Nah. It was the sweatpants. Definitely the sweatpants! It was like snapping himself out of a dream when he shook his head and asked, “You finished with my bike already?”

Mark wiped crumbs from the corner of his mouth. “Taking a break. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got all of the parts I need. Just need the time.”

“I swear I’ll pay you,” Jaemin stated. That reminded him. He needed to count his money. His next step after this would be completely determined by how much he had left.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to.” Mark waved a hand.

Jaemin narrowed his eyes, more than ready to fight and insist on this.

“Mark says you’re from out of town,” Mark’s mother cut in, dark hair curling around her face. “Any reason why you’d come _here_ of all places?”

Jaemin knew she meant this town. Not their house specifically. “It’s just where I ended up,” he replied. God, he was starving and it had been days since he’d had a hot meal. He could only be so happy living off of salty chips and dry crackers from gas stations. He took another big bite of pizza. “It’s a nice little town, from what I’ve seen.”

“Don’t lie,” Mark said playfully, nudging him in the side. The light above the table caught his eyebrow piercing _just right,_ making it glint like a tiny little diamond. “Come on, compared to everything you’ve seen on the way here, this is at the bottom of the list, right?”

Jaemin swallowed his food and made a half-gagging noise. Mark’s mother stood up to pour him a glass of water. When she handed it to him, he gulped it down gratefully. Satiated, he sat the empty glass back down on the table and finally returned his attention to Mark. “Yeah, I’ve been to a lot of places. Seen huge cities. Gone through towns this big.” He held up his thumb and index finger with only a hair’s width of space between them. “I’ve seen towns with cows in people’s front yards. This town’s pretty okay.” He thought back to his ride with Mark through town. He hadn’t seen much of it from out of the Wrangler’s windshield but he still liked what he had seen. “Then again, the beach makes a lot of things better.”

Mark made a noise in the back of his throat like he was willing to argue that point.

“Places like this can get lonely in winter,” said Mark’s mother, pouring Jaemin another glass of water. “Crowds of people flock here for the summer but once the weather cools down, this place drops off the map till next May.”

Mark nodded as if to confirm.

Jaemin was rather shocked by this concept. Then again, he was from a large city where the weather didn’t really determine the population. He was, however, more than a little embarrassed by the fact that he’d emptied his plate already. Had he been _that_ hungry? Or were those pizza slices just really small?

Mark must have saw him staring at his empty plate. He nudged Jaemin and said, “If you want seconds, get seconds.” And Jaemin didn’t need to be told twice.

He stood back up and rushed back to the pizza boxes like they’d disappear on him if he moved too slow. He loaded up another plate and sat back down, purposefully angling himself so that his knee no longer pressed into Mark’s thigh.

“So,” Mark asked, “what’s the strangest thing that’s happened to you out on the road?”

Jaemin sighed in exasperation, not really wanting to think about it. “Every day brings something strange. There is no way I can narrow it down to just one thing.”

A short, tense silence. The TV in the other room was playing some sitcom. The forced studio audience laughter sounded like muffled ocean waves.

Mark pressed, “Well, what’s the scariest thing that’s happened?”

“Don’t interrogate the boy, Mark,” his mother stopped him.

“It’s alright,” Jaemin defended him. “It’s actually a pretty good question.” He stuffed more pizza into his mouth, barely remembering to chew before swallowing. Barely remembering to _taste_ it. “I see all sorts of crazy shit out on the road.” He realized that he’d swore and glanced up at Mark’s mother, but the woman didn’t seem too bothered by the profanity. He continued, “I’ve heard people whisper behind my back… Watched them spit at my feet. Run away from me like I’m diseased. Talk to me like I’m dumb. Try to cheat me out of my money… You’d be amazed what people will try to pull on you when they think you don’t speak English.”

Mark nodded but didn’t comment. It was just like in the car, Jaemin realized. Mark waited for Jaemin to tell his own story. Or maybe there was just something about Mark that kept Jaemin from shutting up. That kept him from keeping the secret parts of him a _secret_.

“I carry a blade with me,” said Jaemin. “I’ve only had to pull it out on someone… Hmmm, four or five times? Maybe six? It sounds like a lot, but I think that’s kind of low considering how far I’ve come and the places I’ve swung through.”

“That’s still six times too many.” Mark’s mother got tense. Raising her shoulders practically up to her ears. “You weren’t scared, were you?”

“Of course I’m scared. _Was_ scared.” Jaemin took a slow, shaky breath. It felt weird to talk about this. To have someone he could talk about this with. “At the back of my mind, I’m always scared... but it helps. Fear keeps you on your toes, makes you aware of things you’d never notice before. Makes you be extra careful about when and where you choose to sleep.” Jaemin gulped down more water and then looked up to see both Mark and his mother staring at him, eyebrows raised in matching angles of concern. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to kill the mood.”

No one spoke for a long moment. The TV in the next room was blaring a commercial about a vacuum perfect for _getting up all of that pesky pet hair_ ! _It can be yours with just four easy payments of..._

“What was the coolest city you’ve been through? Or the prettiest?” Mark broke the silence, trying to salvage the conversation.

Jaemin actually had to think about it a bit. “New York was absolutely massive but just as dirty as everybody says. Hmmm… I wanted to swing through Durham, since I heard it’s the perfect place for foodies, but I was too far east. It would have been out of my way and, back then, I was more focused on where I wanted to end up rather than where I wanted to go while on my way there.”

Mark’s mother gave a thoughtful nod, chewing slowly on her veggie pizza.

“Maybe on my way back, I’ll do some sight-seeing,” Jaemin thought aloud.

“You’re going _back_?” Mark asked, surprised. “To Maine?”

“Not any time soon.” Jaemin looked down. His plate was once again empty. “If I could stay away from that place a little while longer…”

It was clear that Mark wanted to ask more questions. He was physically vibrating from the curiosity but even he was clued in to the weird mood around the table. He didn’t press his luck.

Free from the bombardment of questions, Jaemin thanked Mark’s mother sincerely for the hospitality before standing up to throw his trash away. Mark rushed to finish his own meal before following Jaemin out of the kitchen.

“I hope you figure out what you want,” Jaemin said when they were halfway down the hallway.

“What?”

“With your schooling,” Jaemin clarified, coming to a stop and leaning against the wall. “I hope you figure it all out soon. I know you’re young… like what?”

“Twenty one,” Mark answered.

That caught Jaemin off guard. He hadn’t expected them to be so close in age. To be at such similar stages in life. He'd spent his childhood _so far ahead_ of others. “School can be tough… and expensive… and stupid.”

Mark relaxed, propping himself up on the wall exactly opposite of Jaemin. He got a certain look in his eye that made it obvious he felt the exact same way but had never felt brave enough to speak his thoughts out loud. “I just don’t think school is for me... but--” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “--but Mom will never let me quit. She swears up and down that a degree is the best thing I can get.”

“It is,” Jaemin mumbled, pushing himself up off the wall to continue down the hallway. He stepped down the worn, carpeted floor with ease, like the place was his and Mark was the guest. “That’s what makes it all that much worse,” he joked. “We need it but it doesn’t need us.”

Mark followed Jaemin quietly, his eyes darting this way and that, suddenly conscious of every single one of the house’s small flaws: the peeling wallpaper; the dark stain on the carpet; the water damage along the baseboards; a long row of paint swatches in multiple shades of blue across the off-white door of one of the bedrooms, a pitiful reminder of Mark’s half-assed, forgotten attempt to spruce up the house last summer. At last, Mark’s gaze settled on Jaemin’s broad back and his shoulder-length silky hair. His upturned nose, squared-off jaw and thick eyelashes. He was sexy in a quiet and intense way, the curves of his muscles were prominent even beneath Mark’s clothes. Beyond all that, though, Mark recognized his intelligence. Not just book smarts but some kind of wisdom beyond his age. A monk that had reached enlightenment. Mark could practically _feel_ it in the way Jaemin fearlessly carried himself.

Mark wondered how much of a bumbling idiot he looked like in Jaemin’s eyes.

“This one’s yours, right?” Jaemin suddenly came to a stop, pointing to one of the half-open bedroom doors.

Mark snapped out of his stupor. “How did you guess?”

Jaemin looked over his shoulder at him. “I assume your mother doesn’t skateboard.” The badly beaten up thing, covered in stickers, was clearly visible through the crack in the door.

Mark brushed past Jaemin to push the door open all the way and then cut on the light. A whitish-yellow haze flooded the room. Thank goodness Mark had decided to clean up his room that morning, but even then, there were still textbooks, half-finished projects, an unfolded pile of clean laundry and rough drafts of essays strewn all across the floor. “Finals are coming up next week,” Mark stated with a nervous laugh.

Jaemin didn’t mind the clutter. It reminded him of his own room back home. God. College had only been about a year ago for him but it already felt like it had been a lifetime. He’d gone through four majorly different hairstyles and twice as many hair colors since graduation. In a way, it felt like he’d become all sorts of different people over the last year, trying to adapt to the world, trying to find who he was and where he fit in and what he was _supposed to do_. Jaemin watched Mark scramble around the room, stashing away his laundry and cleaning up his studying materials, and wondered if he, too, was in the middle of some sort of self-metamorphosis. It was a mesmerizing concept. Just a box of hair dye could make a person feel brand new. But with Mark, the catalyst of his transformation had been a pair of scissors and the bathroom mirror. Jaemin figured that even a botched haircut could turn someone into a whole new species of themselves.

Oddly enough, Jaemin wanted to ask what part of his transformation Mark was on. Which had been his favorite? How many more did he think he had to go through before he found the one that suited him best?

Jaemin was still on the search for his.

“I played soccer as a kid,” Mark started off, unprompted. He had finished straightening up his room and his breath came in ragged gasps as he leaned against the doorframe. “Then I dabbled in drawing, in martial arts, in the flute… Mom thought I should do something a bit more concrete, a bit more stable, a bit more 9-to-5. Science or business, you know? So I went to college for marketing, for sports science, for math. Now I’m stuck in hotel management.”

“Maybe you’ll learn to like it.” Jaemin sat down on the edge of Mark’s bed. The only chair in the room was the one place where Mark had decided to pile up all of his books and papers. “And who says you can’t have hobbies?”

“Right. Right,” Mark mumbled. He didn’t sound particularly convinced. “I guess I just wanted it all to fit together like a puzzle. Like… I’d do something and I’d hear bells in my head and know that was the thing I was made for.”

Jaemin readjusted the waistband of Mark’s too-tight sweatpants and only then was he reminded of his lack of underwear. He was willing to share a lot of things but he’d be damned before he wore some other guy’s boxer briefs. Even if they were clean. Jaemin shifted awkwardly until he’d gotten into a slightly more bearable position. 

“I’ve tried a lot of things,” Mark spit out the words, desperate to keep the conversation flowing. “I’m just waiting and waiting for the perfect match, I guess. The thing that’ll make everything make sense.”

Jaemin kept his eyes on the framed dinosaur poster above Mark’s desk, realistic illustrations depicting numerous colorful species. “You sound more fickle than I thought,” he stated, not meaning to say it aloud. He may as well plunge ahead. “I mean… You’ve switched majors a shit ton of times now that I think about it.” He glanced around Mark’s bedroom. Even just from the things Mark had scattered around his room, it was easy to see that this indecisiveness of his had plagued him since he was a child. There was a snapped-in-half lacrosse stick next to a dented baseball bat next to a deflated soccer ball. There was an incomplete model airplane on his desk which shared space with a wooden dinosaur skeleton and the both of them stood on top of a multitude of spare bike parts. So on and so forth around the room until Jaemin was dizzy from counting up the number of hobbies and interests Mark had gone through.

“I’m decent at a lot of things,” Mark mumbled, answering the question Jaemin hadn’t asked. His voice sounded weary and thin as if just talking about this had aged him thirty years. “But I’m not _very good_ at much of anything.”

“Says who,” Jaemin asked. 

“My grades.”

Jaemin took notice of the fact that Mark still stood by the doorway, looking out of place in his own room. Guilty, Jaemin stood up, smoothed down the comforter where his ass had put wrinkles in it, and then walked past Mark back out into the hall. “I think the washing machine has stopped,” he said, heading down the hallway. 

Mark once again followed after him as if Jaemin were the one giving _him_ a house tour. 

Jaemin asked him, “Do you know where you’re gonna go or what you’re gonna do when you graduate?”

The question made Mark audibly gulp. “Do you know where you’re gonna go after you leave here?”

Touche. “Nope.”

“Neither do I.”

By then, the two of them had gotten back to the washer and dryer. The washing cycle was finished, so Jaemin hastily transferred his clothes from one machine to the other, cracking a big yawn as he turned on the machine. He was usually fast asleep by now, shivering under his blanket, clutching his backpack to his chest to keep it from being stolen from him while he slept. “What about my bike?”

Mark choked back a noise. He’d clearly forgotten all about it. “Shit. Sorry. I’ll finish working on it.”

Jaemin turned away from the machines, not expecting Mark to be so close. “How long will it take?”

“An hour or so?” Mark reasoned, counting on his fingers as if doing the math. “I just have to fit her with a new chainring and attach a replacement crank arm. Nothing fancy.”

Jaemin didn’t know what half of those words meant. “Can I take a nap,” he asked. With the food sitting warm in his full belly, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay awake much longer.

“Sure. You can take my bed.” Mark started back down the hall towards his bedroom.

That was a bit too familiar. Too intimate. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Really? It won’t be comfortable at all. Trust me.”

“The couch is fine,” Jaemin insisted.

Mark stood there with his mouth half-open for several seconds before managing an, “Oh, okay.”

Jaemin had only intended to nap until the dryer cycle was done. Until he could give Mark back his clothes, pack up his things and leave on his bike to find a hotel to spend the rest of the night in. However, when he stretched out on the living room couch and shut his eyes, he was out like a light within seconds and did not wake up until the rosy light of dawn was peering at him through the windows.

“Shit,” he mumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes. While he was asleep, someone had tucked him beneath the warm, cozy weight of a blanket and had even slipped a pillow beneath his head.

Everything smelled like Mark. Like hope and peaches.

Jaemin stood up off of the couch and stretched out his stiff legs. It had to be quite early in the morning. He was certain he was the only person up at this hour. The house was far too quiet and still. On socked feet, he padded around the room, leaning forward and examining all of the family pictures hanging on the wall or displayed on the book shelf. Mark was in many of the photos. In a baseball uniform in one, a karate uniform in another, standing with his school orchestra in another, doing the same open-mouthed smile in each one. Jaemin didn’t know how or why his first thought was that the inside of Mark’s mouth was cute.

He spotted his bike in the foyer next to the door. Everything looked as good as new. 

That meant it was time to go. 

As quietly as he could manage, Jaemin went back to the couch and folded up the blanket he’d slept under, then he went down the hall to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth, combed out his hair and then went to the kitchen to grab his backpack. He doubted he had anything worth stealing but he went through each pocket and checked for missing items regardless. He found his crumpled, slightly damp wad of cash and took a few minutes to unfold and count out his money. $423.58. It sounded like a lot but it wouldn’t get him back up to Maine. At least not by bike, considering all of the necessary expenses. His best bet would be to find a bus station and maybe pick a destination at random. Go wherever the road wanted to take him. Let his story tell itself. His stomach growled. Damn! He’d have to find a restaurant first. He was randomly craving hashbrowns. At the washer and dryer, he grabbed his stuff from out of the machine, folded what he wasn’t going to wear and crammed it into his backpack. He slipped off Mark’s old shirt and then bent over to pull down Mark’s sweatpants when the slightest creak of a floorboard alerted him to someone else’s presence.

He turned around, just in time to see Mark duck out of sight back into his room.

“Come here,” Jaemin whispered, not wanting to disturb Mark’s mother.

“I’m sorry,” Mark mumbled, still out of sight. “I just heard shuffling. I thought you were that stray cat trying to break in. Again.”

“Come here,” Jaemin repeated. “You just saw my bare ass. Don’t be shy.” He stooped back down to finish yanking Mark’s sweatpants off of his ankles. He had pulled on his own boxers when he realized that Mark _still_ hadn’t come out of his room. “I’m decent now,” he announced. “Come here.” He grabbed his holey jeans and put one leg in and then the other.

Like a timid kitten, Mark stepped out of his room and made his slow, shuffling way up the hall. He took so long that Jaemin had pulled his shirt on over his head before Mark had even gotten halfway towards him. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jaemin stated. Impatiently, he lunged forward to close the distance between them, grabbed Mark by his slim waist and pulled him into a kiss. He felt Mark tense up beneath his hands, but in less than a breath, Mark relaxed, pressed himself against Jaemin’s chest and kissed him back. The kiss was soft. Oddly warm. Nowhere near long enough. Jaemin pulled away. “I’m leaving now,” he admitted. Calm and cool and unaffected as if they hadn’t just been sharing breaths.

Mark frowned. “I figured.”

“I’m not going back to Maine,” Jaemin said.

“Then where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

“Not anymore.” Jaemin realized he was still gripping Mark’s waist. It took a valiant effort to peel his fingers away and step backwards. “My destination’s changed again so I have to keep going.”

Mark ran a hand through his hair. A million questions danced on the tip of his tongue. He picked one. “Why are you doing all of this?”

Jaemin wanted to be a smart ass and answer “to find myself” like he’d done countless times before but there was something about the soft sunrise pouring through the windows and warming his skin that demanded he be truly honest with himself. “My mom died a few weeks back,” he said. He was still amazed how Mark’s quiet, expressive little face could keep making him say anything and everything. It was that look right there, top teeth worrying his bottom lip, that just made Jaemin want to tell Mark the story of the whole world. “She was fine one day. Had a seizure in her sleep the next.” Jaemin’s gaze went a bit unfocused. He was looking at Mark but not seeing him. He felt tears coming on. He sniffed and held them back. “It just taught me that you won’t always get the chance to wait around for the perfect moment to do something.” He blinked. Now he was looking at Mark again. Seeing him for the nervous, scared boy he was. “Whether you’re prepared enough or not… whether you’re brave enough or not… whether you think it’s a perfect fit or not… Sometimes you just have to _do something_ because you just never know.”

They stood in silence for a long moment. It was quiet enough in the house that Jaemin could hear the birds chirping outside. Hear the distant roar of ocean waves.

“Can I… Can I do something right now?” Mark whispered.

“Life’s too short to hesitate,” Jaemin preached to him. “The chance won’t always be there.”

Mark swallowed hard, sending his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then he stepped forward, put a hand on Jaemin’s neck and leaned in. His body heat rolled over Jaemin’s skin like a wave. Mark nearly brought their mouths together again, chickened out at the last moment and kissed Jaemin on the cheek instead. He pulled back, his cheeks red from nervousness. “So if you aren’t going to Maine, where are you headed?”

“Can’t go east. Can’t go south. Don’t wanna go back north. West is the only way. Texas. Hell, maybe even Cali.”

“Do you think you’ll ever stop? Do you think you’ll ever find a place… to stay?”

Jaemin didn’t know how to respond. A question like that could only be answered once he’d gotten to the place where he wanted to go. “I don’t know.” But he knew he’d probably end up back in Maine before too long. He knew he’d go back home.

Mark sighed. A melancholy expression weighed down the corners of his lips and, for a frightening few seconds, he looked far younger than he was, frightened almost to tears by the uncertainties of the world, scared shitless by the fact that he’d _have_ to dive head first into it.

Jaemin gave Mark an almost genial pat on the shoulder before turning around, grabbing his backpack and heading to the old house’s front door. He retrieved his bike, marveling at how beat up and weathered it appeared next to Mark’s newer and fancier bikes. Mark opened the door for him and helped him get his bike through the threshold and down the front steps.

“Do you at least want directions,” Mark attempted.

“Haven’t needed them before,” Jaemin replied honestly. He saw the way Mark’s face fell. “I’ll take a goodbye, though.”

Mark looked up at him. “Goodbye.”

Jaemin swung his leg over his bike and began pedaling his way towards the version of himself he was desperately trying to catch up to.

**Author's Note:**

> @[CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/TheSwingbyJHF)


End file.
